Blast From The Past II: Travelling Blues

Hmm.

I remember quite well, during my brief three-year stay in Shanghai when I was very little, my family would often travel to the various cities over the weekend, which resulted in long journeys along the country's bland highways, which were accompanied with their infamous chinese toilets.

Remember how China's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics was immediately followed by the city's campaign to clean out all of the city's toilets, which were (expectedly) filthy and unpresentable?

Highway toilets are no exception, in my time (between 1995 and 1998), the toilets along the highway were poorly, if not seldom maintained, with poor flushing systems and perpetually faulty taps, which might have yielded mud from the faucet for all I can imagine.

I just pray the situation has improved.

In any case, my parents would zoom us around the country by car, which would allow my brother and myself to have a good look at what China was all about. One of my favourtie journeys was a car drive to Huang Shan, which was situated two provinces away, and the journey there was absolutely breathtaking... I even remember my dad filling up the gas tank from a provision shop owner, who promptly dragged out a huge can of motor petrol and poured it into the car tank by the means of a funnel.

Similarly, chinese mountain scenery can be breathtaking as well as treacherous... there is a common chinese tour guide saying: if you view the scenery, refrain from walking, when walking, refrain from viewing the scenery.

That's pretty good advice to me, and I think that can be applied to many other things as well (especially for the Big Z):

'When talking rubbish remember to start thinking, if you start thinking, then you can stop talking rubbish'


Cheers,

Crawldaddy